November, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



681 



THE QUIESCENCE OF WINTER 



Relation Betiveen ^iescence and 



Good Wintering. How to Help 



Bees Remain Young 



By Geo. S. Demuth 



WHET HER 

 it be in 

 the far 

 North where 

 winters are long 

 and severe, or in 

 the sunny South 

 where there is 

 but little if any 

 cold weather, 

 the wintering of bees, in its final analysis, 

 consists in the saving of their energy so 

 that they may live longer than in the sum- 

 mer. In the North, this prolonging of the 

 life of the bees is necessary for the exist- 

 ence of the colony until brood-rearing can 

 be safely begun, while in the South it is 

 largely a matter of the saving of stores and 

 preventing the colonies from becoming too 

 weak for profit. 



To live long, bees must live slowly. Ideal 

 wintering would mean the reduction of the 

 activity of the bees to the lowest ebb thru- 

 out the winter, so that the workers which 

 are young in the fall will still be young in 

 the spring, aging but little as the months of 

 activity go by. In a sense wintering may 

 be thought of as putting the bees away in 

 cold storage to keep them fresh until spring. 



The Bees' Instinct for Thrift. 



How fortunate that honeybees are willing 

 to give up the active life of summer, cease 

 brood-rearing, establish a new (lower) col- 

 ony temperature, and remain almost motion- 

 less for days and even weeks at a time, ap- 

 parently for the sole purpose of saving to 

 the uttermost their vitality and their sup- 

 ply of food! If it were not for this in- 

 stinct for quiescence during the long win- 

 ters of the North, none of the worker bees 

 could live from fall until spring; and, even 

 if they could, they would, no doubt, con- 

 sume in winter about all they could possi- 

 bly lay up in the summer. Without this 

 winter rest there could be no beekeeping in 

 the North. In fact, without this strong in- 

 stinct for saving, there would perhaps be 

 no beekeeping anywhere, for otherwise there 

 could not be any surplus honey for the bee- 

 keeper. 

 Great Variation in Expenditure of Energy. 



The honeybee adjusts the spending of its 

 resources according to its needs in a most 

 remarkable manner. It spends lavishly 

 when spending is necessary, but saves mis- 

 erly at other times. Dzierzon in "Rational 

 Beekeeping," aptly describes the great dif- 

 ference between the slow living of late fall 

 and early winter and the fast living at 

 other times as follows: 



"The vital activity of the bees varies a 

 great deal according to circumstances and 

 the time of the year, and the quantity and 

 quality of food necessary are dependent 

 thereon. The quantity of honey which a 

 bee is able to hold in its stomach, may under 

 certain circumstances afford it ample food 

 for more than a vre^Kj ftnd under different 



circumst a n c e s 

 may be insuffici- 

 ent to prevent 

 death from star- 

 ration within 

 24 hours. If we 

 compare life to 

 a process of 

 combustion, then 

 a bee's life is at 

 one time like a spark glimmering under the 

 ashes, and at another, like a bright flame 

 which in a few minutes consumes the com- 

 bustible matter that would have fed the but 

 glimmering fire for a much longer time." 



But the remarkable thing is that the con- 

 sumption of food is apparently a definite 

 measurement of the span of the bee's life; 

 the more food consumed the greater the ac- 

 tivity, and the shorter its life. The great lon- 

 gevity of bees under favorable conditions is 

 well illustrated in the following from an ar- 

 ticle by Doolittle, published in this journal 

 in 1895, page 59: 



"Quietness is the essential quality for 

 safe wintering, for with it always comes the 

 least consumption of stores, and' with a mini- 

 mum consumption of stores comes the least 

 possible exhausted vitality and the greatest 

 longevity during the spring and early sum- 

 mer days. Under such circumstances, I 

 have had individual bees by the thousand 

 in single colonies live from the first of Sep- 

 tember until July first of the following year, 

 or a period of 10 months, this being known 

 by a change of queens on or about the 10th 

 of August. 



This span of life of 10 months contrasts 

 sharply with that of six or eight weeks 

 when the bees are working hard in the fields. 

 It is by no means every season, even in the 

 North, that individual bees can be expected 

 to live this long with the best of wintering, 

 for during the majority of springs they no 

 doubt wear themselves out by hard work 

 long before July 1. 



This same thought was expressed in a 

 different way by E. D. Townsend in The Bee- 

 keepers Review, 1907, page 333, as follows: 

 "A perfectly wintered bee has just as 

 many days' work in her April first as she 

 had the previous fall. * * * The fact 

 is, a bee's life is not figured by the number 

 of days it lives, but by the amount of work 

 or energy used are its days numbered." 

 This, then, is what is meant by wintering. 

 In perfect wintering the bees are able al- 

 most literally to stay the hand of time for 

 several months, retaining the full vigor of 

 their youth for many times the normal span 

 of a bee 's life when measured in weeks and 

 days. For the bees, the fountain of eternal 

 youth lies in refraining from work or play. 



Greatest Degree of Quiescence in Fall. 



Thruout most of the United States the 

 wear and .the tear of bee life is reduced to 

 its lowest ebb in November and December, 

 At this time the bees remain quiet within 



